Thursday, March 24, 2016

My HG of HG masks, I make the same face as that baby when I look at them!

Okay, it's not often that you find a beauty product so completely and utterly perfect for you and your needs and so totally underrated in the beauty blogosphere that it feels like it's tailored specifically for you and YOU alone? Yes, I'm talking about you, my one true love, Mandom Barrier Repair Mask.On paper, it doesn't look like much. A sachet with a baby looking whimisical like it's never had to worry about compromised acid mantles in its tiny life (like, good for you, tiny child? Stop rubbing it in my face!)A quick glance at the pricetag would almost have you think it's one of those cheap and cheerful but direly useless masks (they retail for about $3.50 a pop) and you almost go to put it back on the shelf before you take a look at the ingredients list and think, hold on, there's something pretty good happening here.It's a relatively no frills list, but what they do manage to cram into the extra saturated sachet is remarkable. Immediately, beneficial fats like Squalane & macadamia leap out at you, followed by reassuring, soothing skin friends glycerine and hyaluronic acid. The lack of mineral oils, parabens, fragrance and high contents alcohol is a breath of fresh air for sensitive, dehydrated skin.CosDNA analysis & ingredients list:Water, dipropylene glycol, butylene glycol, glycerin, hydrolyzed hyaluronic acid, hydroxylated lechithin, squalane, macadamia nut fatty phytosteryl, polyquaternium-51, (glyceraldehyde-methacrylic acid glyceryl amide ethyl/stearyl methacrylate) copolymer, glycosyl trehalose, PEG-32, PEG-6, hydroxyethyl urea, PEG-60 hydrogenated castor oil, hydrogenated starch hyrdrolysates, xanthan gum, (acrylates/alkyl acrylate (C10-30)) crosspolymer, octoxyglycerin, diphenyl dimethicone, triethylhexanoin, potassium hydroxide, disodium EDTA, hydroxypropyl arginine lauryl/myristyl ether, polyglyceryl myristate -10, caprylyl glycol, ethanol.I use these bad boys whenever I do a Detclear Peeling Jelly exfoliation or an intensive BHA session (bless your BHA goodness COSRX), when I know my skin's barrier is going to compromised and needing a little TLC. The mask is a super soft, ultra thirsty cotton woven sheet with flip out eyeholes (I personally love them as a feature, they make me feel like I'm getting a double duty eye mask as well as face mask!) and perforations along the temple, jawlines, upper lip and chin so you don't have to battle with the size and fitting of the mask, you can tear and fit it to your face. I really like that they have perforations on the upper lip to tighten to your mouth contours, as I have a lot of body jewellery in the area and I find this is the part of the sheet mask that usually fits horribly. Being able to custom fit my mask does amazing things for the absorption of the essence, I'm definitely one of those people who hates having wrinkles in my mask while I wear it! The cotton fibre sheet is so unlike so many I've tried before, instead of feeling dry and kind of unyielding, it's super saturated, pliable and clings to your face like nothing else. The mask is positively dripping in essence, so what I like to do is take the mask from the sachet, and lay it on some clean cling film and squeeze the remainder of the essence from the sachet & slather it on my face before applying the sheet mask - I'm not embellishing when I say I -LOVE- this mask and want to get the absolute most from it that I can. This sheet stays moist for at least an hour, so I take the time to have a little kip or catch up on my favourite TV shows.

Attempted ~glamour~ selfie with my fave sheet mask and Etude House kitty headband. Okay, the skin underneath that mask is very glamorous, I assure you!

Taking the mask off is one of my favourite reveals, I feel like I need a brass quartet to announce the arrival of my plumped up, glossy, hydrated, chok chok skin. The essence absorbs like a dream, and is easily patted in with no stickiness (which is so unlike a lot of hyaluronic acid masks I use)

If you're like me, and are a fan of AHA/BHA exfoliants, have dry/sensitive skin, mature skin or dull skin in need of a boost, I cannot recommend this mask enough. It's safe to use with combination/oily skin, but as with any mask, I would double check the ingredients list to make sure there aren't any personal acne triggers hiding away.In summation, I always have a box of these in my stash. When I read somewhere that they were discontinuing the range, I nearly had an apoplexy until I saw that they were merely updating the formulation and box design. This is in my top three sheet masks at the moment, if I had some kind of rating system, it would definitely get a five out of five from me!